MORE THAN A GAME

IGHSAU photo Glory days: The Hansell team celebrates winning the 1951 state championship. State tournaments were held at the Drake Fieldhouse prior to the opening of Veterans Memorial Auditorium in 1955.

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It opens in the Prescott gymnasium, with the backdrop of a Nadas song written specifically for the program. The scene is like hundreds of other tiny, rural gyms around Iowa, jam-packed on cold winter nights for decades as generations of fans cheered for their girls basketball teams. At 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Iowa Public Television continues its tradition of telling Iowa stories with the premiere of a one-hour documentary, “More Than a Game: Six-on-Six Basketball in Iowa.” The documentary takes a look back at six-on-six basketball and its impact on generations of Iowa girls and communities. The statewide network (channel 11 in Des Moines and local cable) will replay the show 8:15 p.m. March 7 and again March 16 at a time to be announced in collaboration with Iowa Public Television’s annual Festival programming. DVD available Those who pledge during the fundraising portions of programming will receive a special DVD of the documentary with bonus features. Who better to present this unique story of Iowa athletics and the passion the girls stirred in those communities than one of the game’s former players? Producer of the documentary, spending nearly a full year collecting interviews, photographs, and old video footage is Laurel Bower Burgmaier of rural Creston, 1991 graduate of East Union High School. Burgmaier and twin sister Allison (Bower) Dunphy played together on East Union teams in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their mother, June (Schroudemier) Bower, was a forward on her Thayer basketball teams in the mid-to-late 1950s. She played with her two sisters Diane and Sharon. Thayer later consolidated into the East Union school district. “Another (IPTV) producer, Andrea Coyle, and I were both former six-on-six players and we had been talking about doing this since I started working here 12 or 13 years ago,” Burgmaier said. “I had done some other documentaries and (management) understood there was a big passion behind this topic and it was unique to this state.” 10-month project It all started with hours of research last April. The focus stayed mainly on Iowa’s small towns, because that is where the game flourished until Title IX legislation in the 1970s led to more girls basketball programs emerging in the state’s larger cities. Six-on-six basketball employed three scoring players (forwards) and three defenders (guards) who stayed on their half of the court. After baskets, officials would hurriedly toss the ball ahead to the opposing team’s forward to start play on that half of the court. Players were limited to two dribbles. It was a quick-paced, passing-oriented game with a high number of shots per game. In the game’s heyday, players often scored 60 to 70 points a game individually. In the famed 1968 championship game, Jeanntte Olson of Everly scored 76 points and Union-Whitten’s Denise Long scored 54 points as Union-Whitten won 113-107 in overtime. Long scored more than 90 points in an earlier tournament game, and once scored 111 points in a game. Creston qualified for the state tournament in 1977 and 1978 under coach Eldon Gammell. In the 1980s, Lynne Lorenzen of Ventura set a national scoring record with 6,736 career points before a career at Iowa State. Lorenzen, now of Coos Bay, Ore., is among the Iowa six-on-six legends returning for a reunion at this weekend’s girls state tournament and premier showing of the documentary Sunday. Several of them will be in the studio during Festival programming Sunday night. Among them is Sandy Van Cleave, star of the Montezuma team that won 89 straight games in the 1970s. A capper on the player interviews is Lisa Brinkmeyer of Hubbard-Radcliffe, who played in the final six-on-six game in 1993. The game had a tradition of outstanding guards, too. The documentary introduces viewers to Kim Peters, outstanding defender for the Andrew teams of the late 1970s who was born with one hand. She ended up being named captain of the all-tournament team. The program also includes interviews with pioneers of the game from the 1920s and 1930s. Also shown are some of the legendary coaches of the game, such as Larry Niemeyer of Cedar Rapids Jefferson, longtime coach at Adel, and southwest Iowa coach Dean Roe, with many years at Adair-Casey and Stuart-Menlo. The bonus DVD includes reference to Roe’s annual six-on-six reunion games held in central Iowa. Tourney pageantry The documentary also includes highlights from state tournaments, and some of the pageantry brought to the event by E. Wayne Cooley, longtime executive director of the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union. Who can forget the distinctive voice of the late Jim Duncan, introducing Hall of Fame inductees brought to center court under a Veterans Memorial Auditorium spotlight, as he began with, “The yearrrrrr was ....” The scenes also include Hall of Fame broadcasters Jim Zabel and Frosty Mitchell, attired in leisure suits and checkered pants during the 1970s tournament fever. Cooley himself, his successor Troy Dannen and celebrity figures like journalist Chuck Offenburger and former Gov. Robert D. Ray add their observations on camera for Burgmaier. Tirelessly dogging key sources and scouring old videos and photographs, then moving into script writing and editing, Burgmaier had to somehow get it all boiled down to a 60-minute presentation. Assisted only by videographers out in the field, and an editor in the studio in recent weeks, she called it a labor of love. “We felt it was an important story to tell,” Burgmaier said. “Coach Niemeyer said in the interview how they’d get 2,000 people for the girls game, then only a small portion would stay around for the boys game. Frosty Mitchell said it was faster than hockey. It was originally designed because they felt girls should play a different game, but it actually became faster and higher-scoring, yet with some great guards. People loved it.” Eventually, pressure to provide equal opportunities to female players, especially those pursuing a collegiate career, led to the six-on-six game’s extinction. It was considered progress. But to many, rural Iowa will forever be remembered as the nation’s leader in girls athletics, primarily because of the attention the unique brand of entertainment provided to those passionate fans in the tiny gymnasiums dotting the countryside. “Six-on-six basketball in Iowa meant a great deal not just to the girls who played, but also to the communities that supported them,” said Daniel K. Miller, executive director and general manager of Iowa Public Television. “In that way, the story of this game is the story of Iowa.” —————— Larry Peterson can be reached at 782-2141, ext. 232 or lpeterson@crestonnews.com